Recognizing rights for nature: a contradiction in terms? Law is one of the foundations of life in society. It transforms our ethical ideals into shared rules and makes equality before the law the basis of inclusion, regardless of origins, gender, orientation, or disability. As the heir to a long history, it also aims to pacify human relations and to curb the excesses of a development model based on limitless growth, now confronted with the scarcity of resources and the fragility of the living world. Yet, paradoxically, the environment remains a blind spot of environmental law. In seeking to protect nature, the law has often reduced it to a set of resources or services useful to humans, thereby contributing to a form of legal guardianship over living beings. This approach is now showing its limits in the face of planetary boundary overshoot, which highlights the mismatch between our legal frameworks and ecological realities.
It therefore becomes necessary to rethink our relationship with the environment—not as a mere object of law, but as a neighbor with whom we must coexist. This reconfiguration of the link between humanity and ecosystems opens the way to new legal models, particularly through the recognition of the rights of nature. In this work, Philippe Billet, a specialist in environmental law, offers a clear and committed reflection on the role of law: not only as a tool for protecting nature, but also as a means of protecting humanity from its own excesses, by fundamentally rethinking its relationship with the living world. 264 pages book, in French.
L’ENVIRONNEMENT, UN IMPENSÉ DU DROIT DE L’ENVIRONNEMENT - L’ARRAISONNEMENT JURIDIQUE DE LA NATURE ET DE SES SERVICES - LES LIMITES PLANÉTAIRES - LE VOISINAGE OU LA RECONFIGURATION DES RAPPORTS À L’ENVIRONNEMENT - LES DROITS DE LA NATURE
LIVRE 264 PAGES